Most of the actual gameplay in Explorers of Sky is set within the mystery dungeons. As a member of Wigglytuff's Guild, your job is to explore the world in search of clues, outlaws, lost Pokemon, and ancient treasure. Doing so usually means investigating the caves, ruins, and forests that are strewn throughout the world.

On every visit to a mystery dungeon, you'll encounter a different layout on every floor. The enemies you encounter are drawn from a list of potential candidates, but you'll never fight the same Pokemon in the same place twice. Similarly, a dungeon will generally have the same local features, such as open water, from one visit to the next, but the individual paths will change from visit to visit.

With that in mind, a traditional walkthrough doesn't really make a lot of sense for this game. We'll list the enemies you can find inside each dungeon you visit, as well as local conditions like light sources and particular sources of danger, but when you go exploring, you're more or less on your own.

Combat

Throwing Items

In dungeons with decent visibility, you can sometimes see an enemy coming from a long way off. At this point, it makes a lot of sense to equip a throwing item like Geo Pebbles or Sticks. By holding down L and pressing R, you can whittle away an enemy's HP on every turn until it reaches melee range, allowing you to achieve an easy win. When you're in a dungeon that you're slightly too low-level to handle, using throwing weapons on a few early fights can get you the experience you need to win through.

You can equip and Throw just about anything in your inventory by pulling it up from your menu. If you Throw an item at one of your teammates, they receive the item's effect just as if they'd used it themselves.

Throwing an item at an enemy, on the other hand, will have differing effects. Helpful items like Oran Berries will heal their target; harmful items like Oren Berries will damage their target; and an enemy will simply catch anything else you throw at them. Upon their defeat, they'll drop the item you threw, allowing you to reclaim it. This means you can turn useless Oren Berries into dangerous hurled projectiles.

Most of the Pokemon you encounter in mystery dungeons will initially be hostile. In this case, all you can do is fight back, using any method at your disposal.

Your simplest method of defeating an opponent is by simply facing it and tapping the A button. This uses your character's basic Attack stat to inflict damage, and is mitigated by your target's Defense. It costs nothing to use and has no associated damage type.

Using your characters' special moves can and usually does do more damage, but they are limited by PP. Your characters can use a given move a set number of times per dungeon run, which is indicated on your Moves screen. You also receive an experience bonus for using special moves in a successful fight. To restore PP, use items like Max Elixirs. You also earn a notable bonus to your earned experience for using special moves in a successful fight.

When an enemy Pokemon gets within six squares of your current position, the game shifts to turn-based combat mode. At this point, every involved Pokemon can take one action per turn, beginning with your Pokemon. After that, your partner acts, followed by any other Pokemon in your team, and finally the enemy. In the event that a Pokemon has skills that speed it up or allow it to take extra turns, such as Geodude's Polish, these extra turns will be taken once every other Pokemon in the fight has had the chance to act.

In the course of a single turn, you can move one square in any direction, use a special move, attack, or use an item. Since you're limited to moving one square at a time in combat, this means that you cannot move through allied or enemy Pokemon; if you're surrounded on all sides, you're stuck until something else can be persuaded to move.

When you move in combat, your character will automatically wind up facing in the direction you were moving. It is possible to accidentally waste your turn in combat by attacking in the wrong direction; your Pokemon will swing at empty air, and the combat will continue afterward. Be sure to take a moment before you act to make sure you're facing in the right direction. Hold down the Y button while using the control pad, and you can turn your character in place without any risk of moving him accidentally.

As a general rule, you'll be fighting enemy Pokemon one and two at a time. It's a good idea to reserve one of your special moves to get fights over with quickly, allowing you to earn extra experience while you're at it, and to save another for emergencies. For example, I played through the game as a Chimchar. Against ordinary Pokemon in a dungeon, my Scratch move dealt enough damage to drop them in a hurry, allowing me to move on quickly and efficiently. I saved Ember as a straight-up nuke, which allowed me to rapidly chew through bosses' HP. In your game, of course, your approach may vary.

Tactics

Watch the Floor

From the beginning of the game, you'll see both friendly and enemy Pokemon that can influence their environment, using moves like Mud Sport. Most of these moves only last a short time, but can have an immediate and profound effect on the fight.

Mud Sport lasts a couple of turns, and halves the damage inflicted by Electric-type moves, while Water Sport does the same for Fire-type. Defused can be caused by Rainy weather, and prevents traps or skills from causing explosions.

Finally, Gravity nullifies the advantages of Flying-type Pokemon or ones that know Levitate, forcing them to take full damage from Ground-type moves. Gravity also negates Magnet Rise status.

You only directly control the leader of your exploration team. The rest of your Pokemon act according to the tactical choices you assign to them.

You begin the game with three tactical options: "Let's go together," "Go after foes," and "Avoid the first hit.."

A Pokemon acting on "Let's go together" will follow your leader closely at all times, and only goes off on its own when the leader has somehow been transported away (i.e. with a Warp Orb). The Pokemon will directly attack enemies within one square of it, but will otherwise contribute to fights by spamming buffs and debuffs. This can honestly get a little annoying, as some Pokemon (i.e. Geodude) will buff themselves to the gills on every turn, regardless of whether or not it's anywhere near the fight.

A Pokemon told to "Go after foes" will break off from the team and go solo, pursuing and attacking any enemy Pokemon in the area. If no enemies are available, the Pokemon follows the leader.

If told to "Avoid the first hit," a Pokemon will move away from the team and approach any enemies that appear, but will stop two squares away from them and wait for them to come near before attacking.

Damage and Healing

When you're struck by an enemy Pokemon, you lose HP. At 0 HP, a Pokemon is defeated and disappears, leaving behind any items it was carrying. If you run out of HP, you are defeated, and will wake up at Guild headquarters (see Defeat, below).

Outside of combat, you and the Pokemon in your party regenerate health at a rate of 1 HP every three turns or so; in this context, that means you get one HP back for every three steps you take. You can wait around to regenerate by holding down A and B at the same time, but this will end immediately if an enemy Pokemon gets within combat range. It's usually a good idea to wait in place for a bit after a fight, to take advantage of this free healing.

You can also restore health by using certain items, such as Oran Berries.

At level 10, you gain the "Wait there!" Tactic, which allows you to set your partner down on a given square. This enables you to set up ambushes, which can come in handy for particularly tough roving monsters.

When your leader reaches level 15, you'll learn "Get away from here!" When you give a Pokemon this command, they run in fear from enemies without attacking. They will not pick up items or accept any that you try to give until such time as you change their orders. This can come in handy if your partner is low on health and you have no way to heal him.

At level 20, you learn "You go the other way," which tells a Pokemon to leave formation and go off on its own. The Pokemon will wander the same floor as you, engaging and attacking any foes it encounters. There isn't a lot to recommend this tactic, really.

You get "Be patient" at level 30. A Pokemon, when thusly instructed, will follow the team, but stops dead in its tracks when it reaches 50% health and will not move. It will defend itself against enemy Pokemon, but won't go on the attack.

Finally, at level 35, you learn "Avoid trouble." The Pokemon will follow the team until such time as it drops to 50% health or less, whereupon it becomes terrified and runs away, much like the "Get away from here!" tactic.

In most circumstances, you'll want to use "Let's go together!", switching out for "Go after foes" as the situation dictates. There aren't many situations in Explorers of Sky where a Pokemon on its own is better off than a Pokemon with a group.